Since live-action coaching means you are present when your client conducts business activities and interactions, you face a built-in awkwardness. Few people feel at ease when someone observes them doing their work. Nevertheless, they begin to see the benefit when it provides feedback that can increase their effectiveness. One new client recently told me, “I want a coach so I can see myself in action—someone who can observe what I can’t.”

Before embarking on an in-depth exploration of live-action coaching, I provide a brief overview of a coaching developmental sequence that I often use when working with clients over time. These stages represent the usual flow of activities and events when the client has chosen the complete process that includes live-action coaching. You can use this evolutionary sequence to assess your approach to your clients. The sequence is as follows (see Figure 7.1):

All of these coaching stages demand a range of experience and skill levels from the coach, but the most demanding is stage 3. You can use this survey of the coaching sequence to assess your skills and ascertain which currently represent your skill level when you coach executives. This sequence provides a blueprint for increasing your repertoire of coaching. The more of this sequence you can master, the greater value you bring to your clients.

Skills required: We explored most of the skills for behind-the-scenes coaching in the previous chapters: maintaining a strong signature presence, having the ability to see systems, working from the Client Responsibility Model, and helping the client set goals and plans for action.

My goal for observation is to see clients at least every other month during the length of our coaching contract. This keeps us both honest about how much progress has been made during the coaching work and how much further the client has to go to make her leadership goals a reality.

For live-action coaching clients, the goal of this stage is to observe the client with her team of direct reports when they conduct their business and factor this observation in when it comes to intervening with clients. The purpose of the observation is twofold: (1) to see how the leader and the team interact with each other on their own, without intervention from a coach (the observation operates as a bit of a pretest to see how they do without help) and (2) to see how much capacity and resilience the leader and the team have with each other—for example, are they brittle, defensive, open, curious, engaged, disconnected? It is useful to recognize the skill set and emotional tones that emanate from this leader and team. It helps prepare for the live-action stage of the coaching.

Skills required: The coach must notice themes in the client’s strengths and challenges and describe them back to the client in specific and observable ways that will help develop a targeted action plan for next steps.

Many times consultants do not use the live-action coaching option (stage 3 or 4) even though it could empower their client to a new level of effectiveness. Sometimes change agents gravitate toward one of the extremes of intervention: they either take over the full facilitation of the group’s process or coach the leader in isolation from her team. Both of these methods are viable tools in and of themselves. Depending on them solely, however, can leave a blind spot for both the leader and the coach. This kind of live-action work combined with behind-the-scenes coaching is powerful and effective.

Live-action coaching is just-in-time, on-the-job training and reinforcement of the executive when it counts the most. The greatest level of complexity is live-action coaching in which you intervene with your primary client and his team of direct reports simultaneously. This differs from the classic group process consultation model for which organizational development specialists are best known because the coach does not facilitate the meeting. Instead, while the client leads and facilitates his own meeting with his team, a coach intervenes as the process unfolds. By acting in the moment while events and patterns are in play, the live-action coach can help accelerate the leader’s and the team’s performance and focus on their strengths. It can also help a leader and team get back on track if they have become ineffective as a group. The live-action coach can offer suggestions along the way or stop the meeting at critical times to provide on-the-spot debriefings and opportunities for the leader and team to give each other feedback. Incidentally, the transition from observation to live-action intervention is an easier one to make rather than diving right into live-action coaching the first time the team encounters the coach.

Skills required: In addition to all the skills of behind-the-scenes coaching and observing the client, stage 3 requires the ability to track and intervene on four levels in the midst of the meeting by (1) maintaining the leader’s effectiveness as the meeting facilitator, (2) keeping track of and helping members advance the business agenda, (3) coaching each team member and the leader regarding their individual goals for effective work relationship behaviors, and (4) helping the leader and the team shift out of ineffective patterns and into more productive patterns at the very moment they are unfolding. The Client Responsibility Model has to be foremost in mind so that you do not overstep the boundaries of the coaching role and start to manage the group in place of the leader. Because of the complex elements that the coach needs to track and consider in choosing a course of intervention, I work with a colleague to ensure that there are two coaches working with all of the clients in the room.

One example of stage 3 live-action team coaching is the work a colleague and I did with Len, the vice president of marketing, and his team while he led his team meetings.

Saying all comments and suggestions aloud so that everyone can hear them helps the most people break the trance of the leader and team’s old pattern. Then anyone can take the initiative to make the meeting more productive and thus contribute to the pattern change. We did not take over facilitating the meeting or change direction of the discussion, which left Len in control of the meeting. We made sure not to overstep Len’s authority to facilitate and make decisions.

What is absolutely critical in live-action interventions, in either stage 3 or 4, is not to give evaluative feedback to your client. Evaluative feedback, such as, “You aren’t listening to your team members,” “That statement was too harsh,” or “I see why team members ignore you,” can easily contribute to a defensive response from the person you are delivering the feedback to in such a public forum. I tell my clients in advance to expect to hear short statements of observation or suggestions—for example, “You are over the time you allotted for this topic.” It is important that they are suggestions, not mandates. The point of the statements, suggestions, and questions is to break the trance of the old pattern, not to demand blind obedience from the client. When the trance is broken, the client may actually generate better alternatives than those a coach would suggest.

When a client needs to make a dramatic shift in his business results, leader behaviors, and team interactions, stage 3 live-action team coaching, combined with behind-the-scenes-coaching of the client leader, can help shift patterns and achieve breakthrough results in all of the Three Key Factors of the client’s landscape.

At first, this may seem to be the same as stage 3 leader and team coaching. However, there is a subtle but significant difference between the two. In stage 3, your client is everyone in the group—both the leader and each team member. You work with everyone live during the meeting, and everyone is a candidate for receiving on-the-spot coaching. In stage 4, the executive is your sole client. Unlike stage 3, you do not directly address or coach the group as a whole or as individual members. Nor do you facilitate the meeting since this would deprive the leader of developmental opportunities. Stage 4 live-action coaching focuses solely on how the leader functions.

You are working specifically to improve the executive’s leading skills so she can accomplish her goals in the ensuing meetings. It is a bit like driver’s education instruction in that the leader, not you, has her hands on the steering wheel of the car.

You may wonder why coaching your primary client individually comes developmentally after coaching the full team (stage 3). After everyone has been coached in stage 3, they are much more amenable to live-action coaching solely of their leader. They no longer find it strange that the leader is being coached in stage 4. By contrast, team members are more guarded and less likely to learn if I initiate stage 4 live-action coaching of the leader when the team members have not been clients of coaching themselves. Having been coached, they are less likely to view the coach as a foreign element and their boss as deficient.

Developmentally, I use stage 4 to start weaning the client away from my live-action interventions. Self-reliance has more of a chance to emerge at this point if the coach addresses only the leader rather than the full team. The leader feels more responsibility to make the meeting effective. Since the coach no longer intervenes with team members, the leader has to work to increase team members’ productive interactions.

Skills required: In stage 4, the coach takes a “bifocal view” by watching and diagnosing the quality of the group process while directly intervening with the leader. It takes discipline to have an opinion on how the group is doing and yet not speak directly to the team members. It is not that you are impeding their development, but rather building capacity in the leader to develop the team.

Individual live-action coaching requires the ability to notice the precise moment when the leader strays into her old pattern.

Sometimes coaching the client in a one-on-one session with a staff member can be especially uncomfortable for your client since there are just the three of you in the room. This kind of live-action coaching requires that the client have a high degree of trust in the coach and a great deal of comfort with herself. She has to be willing to put herself under a powerful microscope in this close setting. Although it would seem to be a less vulnerable forum than in front of the whole team, I have found that executives sometimes feel more vulnerable with a coach as witness and intervener in one-on-one sessions.

Stage 4 coaching in one-on-one meetings depends on your track record with the client. This type of session enables a client to get coaching in real time while she attempts to manage her reactivity in a potentially hot situation. It is usually when the client has reached an impasse with one other person that she will consider a one-on-one live coaching session. You must be able to balance respect for her authority (if she is in a manager-employee conversation) along with challenging her in real time to communicate more effectively with her staff.

The coach engages in some hefty self-management in these one-on-one sessions. This is the Client Responsibility Model at its most fundamental and challenging level. A hot triangle can form when only three people are in the room and two of them have some entrenched pattern. The client’s temptation to subconsciously draw you in as interference or a distraction will be great. It can be as simple as the uneasiness between the two inducing you to step in and rescue.

You need to maintain the bifocal view of stage 4 by keeping your focus on your client. You will feel impelled to be a third-party intervener or a human resource policy expert addressing performance management issues. These roles have their place at other times, but they involve a different contract. It takes skill to discern the difference and advise your client as to which role would best suit her development needs at the time.

Level of Trust. The client has to trust the coach enough to bring the coach directly into his live work setting. Trust entails two key elements: (1) the belief that the coach will not overstep his boundaries in the client’s work life, and (2) the coach will not confront the client with a disrespectful challenge in front of her employees. This is tricky business because the purpose of live-action coaching is to effectively challenge the client in front of others in a way that the client welcomes as highly useful. The client needs to know that you act respectfully when you challenge her and also needs to trust that you will not overstep your bounds and act as a replacement for the client with the client’s employees.

Because of these fine lines, live-action coaching usually follows an established client-coach relationship that is already working effectively. I use this coaching either when executives have been long-term clients or they have shown their capacity to receive feedback from me and learn from it during the extensive contracting and planning phases for live team coaching. Both the coach and the client have already walked down the path of immediacy and feedback to the extent that they are ready for live-action coaching.

Client’s Failure to Self-Correct His Pattern. People cannot change what they cannot see. Even with the best of intentions and new plans for action, clients will enter familiar situations and go on automatic, completely forgetting their intention to change their behavior. There was nothing wrong with their plan. It is just that the old behavior and the forces to stay the same are overpowering your client.

When you experience your client not being able to see or change his behavior, then live-action coaching may be the best way for him to change. You provide an immediate biofeedback loop that helps him see his behavior and gives him something that he can respond to right in that moment. Opportunities to change are pointed out for him to take advantage of. He can familiarize himself with a new habit of interaction with his staff, which is reinforced as it is happening.

At one extreme end of the spectrum, the least active option, is observation (stage 2 of the developmental sequence of coaching interventions). As the coach, you benefit from seeing the client in action. You receive information beyond the client’s account of the experience. Also, the client is more aware of her goals for the meeting because of your presence. However, if I am in the room, I prefer to offer as much feedback as possible, and observation gives the coach less influence than the live-action coaching options.

The other end of the spectrum is the “stop action” option. You contract with the client that you may call a time-out at any time and debrief with her right on the spot about what she is doing. This highest-impact option requires the greatest trust between client and coach. The client has to be comfortable with the possibility that she could be in a debriefing conversation regarding her weaker skills in front of others. Clients who have confidence in themselves as learners and have a sense of humor about their own foibles are the best candidates for this option.

A middle-ground option that is used most frequently is to offer the client suggestions or questions during the action that do not interrupt the flow of the meeting. When this is done well, the client continues with her train of thought, either using or ignoring the coach’s suggestions, depending on whether the client can incorporate the suggestion in the moment.

The following example shows planning for live-action coaching with Miriam to determine the coach’s role:

An example of a client giving a well-sponsored explanation of the live-action role in stage 4 (only the client receives coaching) would go something like this: “I’ve asked John [the coach] to be here during our conversation so he can coach me to be more effective. He has been working with me on some of my leadership goals. Improving how I conduct one-on-one conversations is one of them. Although John’s sitting in on the discussion, he’s focusing only on how I’m doing, not on you. He’s raising the heat on me here. John might give me some suggestions in the middle of the conversation so I stay on track. Do you have any questions about his role?”

In the first task, the client sponsors the coach by explaining to the other person the purpose of the session and the purpose of the coach’s presence. Although you may have prepped your client to give such a sponsoring statement, there is no guarantee she will say it effectively. I learned this lesson the hard way when I did not prepare clients around their introductions of me.

Do not allow yourself to be a victim of your client’s definition of your role. Although it is important that she sponsors your presence by defining the reason you are there, feel free to fill in gaps and fine-tune her definition. I tell the client beforehand that I will augment her introduction of me if I need to. It is a way I can add my voice early in the conversation as a joining activity, a way to become known a little bit to the other staff member if he has not met me previously. It is better for him to hear me speak first during this early structuring time in the session rather than first hearing from me during a more intense time, when a higher-impact intervention becomes necessary.

Someone in the staff member’s position is often skeptical about the coach’s “real reason” for being there. You truly need to live up to the stated purpose in the session and maintain your independence from your client’s content agenda. This also means not focusing on the staff member midway through, no matter how tempting it is. It is important that you show in some way that you are not in your client’s “back pocket” or so fused to her view of the situation that you do not have your own perspective. I often let my client know the importance of attending to this emotional landscape and tell her beforehand that at some point in the session, I will probably challenge her as a way of communicating a viewpoint that is independent from her own.

A way to lessen the two-against-one perspective without shining a spotlight on the other person is to sit next to him rather than next to the client during the session. This allows you to share the literal point of view that the staff member has as he experiences his boss.

These small actions can help you position yourself as emotionally neutral to the content outcome of the conversations because you show that you do not side with either the client or the employee in the session, even as you focus solely on your client’s skill development.

The challenge you face in live-action sessions is to be prepared to be very active at any time, while also being prepared to do nothing if no intervention is needed. This is the ultimate challenge of the Client Responsibility Model of coaching. “Doing nothing” while staying attentive and engaged takes a lot of energy. You are observing the extent to which your client is accomplishing what he set out to do.

Turning your observations and your considered judgments into action can be difficult. I said earlier that I have a bias for action in these live-action settings. However, the motto from the Client Responsibility Model is, “Stay active and stay out of the way.” You want to act in the moment to increase the client’s learning, but you can err in a number of ways that can block the client’s full learning potential. One way is to pseudo manage, that is, fill in during all the pauses, missteps, and hesitations of the client in such a way that you take away his leadership. You need to let him manage the session.

You are also not a third-party intervener, particularly when your contract is for stage 4 live-action coaching with one party of the conversation. It is not your job to ensure that the communication or relationship of both parties is mutual or successful or resolved. Your job is to ensure that your client is attending to that, not that you make it happen—a subtle but powerful difference. The more you facilitate as a third-party mediator when that is not what you are contracted to do, the more you increase your client’s dependence on you to make it happen the next time.

So, you may be wondering, what do I do, and what does it look like?

You already have a map that you can bring into the session to help you stay on track: your client’s plan that he developed with you in the planning phase of your coaching work together. It was there that he decided what he wanted to accomplish (the specific next step to advance his business goal) and how he needed to accomplish it in a new way with others (his work relationship challenge).

These two goals—your client’s next specific step and your client’s work relationship challenge—are quite enough to keep track of and intervene around. There is so much going on between people in a meeting that it is easy to get lost or overwhelmed by everything that needs to be worked. You can also become mesmerized by their established patterns.

Sometimes it is tempting to address something you think your client needs to work on when you have no contract to live-actioncoach him on that issue. You will feel pulled to take action addressing these new behaviors. Most of the time, that impulse is a distraction from the contracted goals that your client has set forth. Those goals should be the center of your attention when you help him in the session. Do not let the complexity or novelty of other growth opportunities keep you from helping your client in the very ways he thinks you will be helping him. Live-action coaching is nerve-wracking enough without challenging your client with uncontracted learning goals. It will seem to him as if it is coming out of nowhere.

Let’s revisit the situation of the overselling director, Miriam, and the reluctant manager, Sam. She and I spent some planning time looking at her side of the unsuccessful pattern of their interaction. By attending to the gaps in sponsorship that were undermining her effort, she was able to get sponsorship from Jim (the vice president) to pull Sam out of firefighting situations with Ross (Miriam’s peer).

Miriam was now ready to address her own part in the ineffective transactional pattern with Sam. She set out to eliminate her side of the co-created pattern as a major step, and she wanted me to be present at the session to help her do it differently. As you will recall when last we left Miriam (Figure 6.7), she had a plan to stop the “sell” (Miriam)/“decline” (Sam) pattern between them and work to shift it to “ask something, then pause” (Miriam)/ “Respond and initiate” (Sam). Sam was likely to work to keep the old pattern in place by waiting Miriam out and continuing to neither respond nor initiate. Miriam’s job was to outwait Sam’s waiting until he responded or ask him to paraphrase what she had said.

The coach has to stay within the contract that is established between the coach and the client. What I did not do during the awkward silences was turn to Sam and interact with him, for example, “Sam, are you buying this?” or “What do you think?” or “Could you paraphrase what Miriam is telling you?” These statements are more along the lines of stage 3 live-action coaching of all parties involved, which I was not contracted for in this situation. It is the difference between asking Miriam if she thought Sam got what she said rather than asking Sam to paraphrase Miriam. The more she can stop what is not working, the more she can eventually manage herself in this relationship without the presence of her coach.

Therefore, what you as a coach need to look for is an opportunity to help your client change a pattern that can also support the best use of her authority to align the organization to attain its business goals. This is why so much time is spent up front on establishing the bottom-line, leader interpersonal behaviors, and team interaction goals. When the client stays focused on the Three Key Factors goals, the interactional pattern that needs to be changed becomes clearer. Otherwise there is no compass to discern whether a particular pattern is on or off the mark.

Supporting alignment in the system also honors the hierarchy as it already exists in an organization. No matter how badly the client stumbles during the session, it is critical that you do not take over her job as the manager by speaking for her, establishing your own priorities for the employee, or deciding on the ensuing steps between the two of them. Maintaining alignment means staying out of the boss-employee relationship while coaching the client to attend to that relationship, and helping her see how she can try a new way of interacting with her staff.

In some ways, Miriam’s selling pattern is a substitute for old-fashioned performance management. She undercuts her own goals through selling, which telegraphs to Sam, “You can either buy or not buy what I want you to accomplish. It’s up to you.” I helped Miriam manage the dilemma of how to take a firm stand (backbone) while maintaining a strong connection (heart) with those who work for her. Coaching along this backbone and heart intersection is what a live-action coaching session is all about. Actions you take can be in the form of directives, questions, suggestions, and debriefing on the spot, all to support the client in creating new patterns and better alignment to achieve her goals.

I have found this combination of stage 3, live-action client leader and team coaching, with stage 4, live-action client leader coaching, to accelerate the leader’s learning while developing the leadership of all the team members. This is a three-for-one deal for organizations: the leader client is developed, the business results are accomplished, and the team members (often leaders of their own teams) are developed too. That is a return on investment of executive coaching about which everyone can be happy (see Chapter Nine for more on the return on investment of executive coaching).